A woman, 69, has been accused of stowing her elderly mother’s body in a freezer for nearly two years.
Eva Bratcher appeared in court yesterday after being charged with hiding her 96-year-old mother’s death and having a fake identification card.
The remains of Regina Michalski were found earlier this week in a deep freezer stored in a grade of a two-floor apartment building in Chicago, Illinois.
Prosecutors said a receipt found in the apartment showed Bratcher bought the freezer about two years ago – investigators believe Michalski died March 2021.
Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Pekara said: ‘A search warrant was executed on the residence and police recovered proof of a fraudulent ID card with her mother’s name and the defendant’s photo on it.’
Investigators are still looking into whether Bratcher collected her mother’s social security cheques and other benefits after her mother died.
The medical examiner was unable to conduct an autopsy of Michalski’s body until it thawed out.
But when the autopsy was done yesterday, the medical examiner said the cause and manner of death are still pending.
Michalski lived with Bratcher in the northwest suburb of Portage Park.
In court, prosecutors claimed Bratcher concealed her mother’s death by telling tenants and neighbours her mother was now in a nursing home.
Michalski’s body was found after Bractcher’s estranged daughter, Sabrina Watson, who lives in Kentucky, asked police to check on her grandmother this week.
Having spent years scanning obituaries hunting for Michalski’s name, the last time Watson saw her grandmother decades ago Michalski was in ill health.
Watson’s mother had blocked her phone number and anytime she would visit her home, no one would answer, according to abc7.
The distance between Watson and Bratcher was so great, she created a Facebook page titled ‘Keep Eva Michalski/ Bratcher in Prison’.
‘This page is to alert ANYONE that knows Eva Michalski (aka Eva Bratcher, aka Ewa Michalska and probably other aliases) that she is a DANGEROUS CRIMINAL!’ the page says.
‘There’s basically nothing my mother wouldn’t do for money and if that means putting a body in a freezer, she will put a body in a freezer,’ Watson said.
‘My mother would use my identity falsely. The last time she did it, she used my first name and my maiden name and said that I was unable to work because I was taking in Chicago taking home my sick grandmother.’
Calling the allegations ‘very disturbing’, Judge David Kelly set the defendant’s bail to $20,000. Bratcher will be back in court on February 21.
Watson said her grandmother will always be more than a victim – she was a warm person who made ‘amazing Polish dishes’ as a Polish immigrant.
‘She is a World War II survivor,’ Watson added ‘She survived Nazi-occupied Poland. She survived an abusive marriage.
‘But unfortunately, she did not survive my abusive mother.’
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